For as long as people have walked on floors, there has been a problem of preventing people from slipping and falling on those floors. The problem is particularly pronounced when the floors are in industrial, restaurant, garages and/or public areas. In such areas, water, oil, grease, food, or other liquid or moist materials are frequently deposited or spilled onto the floor surface, presenting a significant hazard to pedestrians and generally unclean conditions. Efforts to keep such surfaces clean and dry are often futile, as the instances and/or quantities of spillage are too great.
In industry in particular, efforts to overcome the above problem have included throwing mats or other temporary surfaces on the permanent base floor, with varying success. Ultimately, such temporary mats themselves become saturated with water or oily materials and thus agitate rather than prevent the hazardous and unclean situation. Saturated mats also had to be cleaned or replaced at considerable cost. Furthermore, such mats are not generally self-adhering to the base floor, and thus are subject to being inadvertently pushed and sliding out of position.
Various means to solve the above problems, including those shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,644,592, have been of limited success. While such mats claim to be removably securable to a base floor, such mats are water repellant rather than absorbent, and are generally intended for disposable use, rather than being reusable.
Therefore, it would be beneficial to provide a floor mat which is reusable, and removably positionable on an existing floor. It would be further beneficial if such floor mat would be able to absorb liquids such as water, oil, and food, and provide a relatively skid-free surface for pedestrian traffic.